Electronic devices communicate using links having electrical (including electro-optical) components. As processing speeds of the electronic devices increase, the speed of communication between such devices also increase. As the speed of communications across various media increases, characteristics that effectively limit the speed of transmission of signals become harder to physically control. Signal processing techniques are used to condition output signals and recognize input signals to compensate for the limiting physical parameters. However, advances in such techniques normally require additional space or power consumption to implement, which increases cost and limits applications having heat or power budgets.
The problems noted above are solved in large part by a system that efficiently searches for settings to condition signals to compensate for the limiting physical characteristics. The system includes an equalizer for conditioning a data signal in response to a first and a second equalizer setting. The first and second equalizer settings are both associated with a selected point on a two-dimensional search grid. The search grid includes a first equalizer setting and a second equalizer setting for each point on the search grid. A transmitter transmits an equalized data signal across a first channel medium using equalizer settings associated with a selected point on the search grid. A receiver analyzes the received signal from the transmitter to determine a signal quality metric. The search grid is used to select settings from neighboring points to produce signals that are evaluated to produce signal quality metrics. The results of the evaluations are used to efficiently search the search grid for optimum equalizer settings for the transmitter.